Chapter Nine

A SMILE split Raffa’s face, and he saw that Kuma’s smile was just as wide. He ran toward the pavilion to meet her.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” “It’s so good to see you!” they said at the same time.

In the next breath, “Where’s Roo?” “Where’s Echo?”

They laughed together, providing each other with at least a partial answer: The beloved animal friends were safe, wherever they were. As Kuma and Raffa hugged, Kuma put a protective hand over the small warm lump of Echo under Raffa’s tunic. Garith caught up and hugged Kuma, too.

But Kuma grew sober almost immediately; there was no time for more catching up. “I’m to take you to the pother tent straightaway,” she said.

Kuma led the boys to two tents side by side, not far from the stream. “This one is for pothering,” she said, pointing to the tent on the left. She made a stirring gesture with her hands; Garith nodded in understanding. “The other one is for treating people who are wounded.”

About a dozen people were lined up along the side of the treatment tent, some sitting on the ground. Although many of them must have been in pain, they were all quiet. Raffa looked over them quickly. He saw a man whose shoulder was bleeding, and another with bite and claw marks on his neck. A torn earlobe, lacerations to cheek and chin, more neck and shoulder wounds.

Raffa nodded at the patients in sympathy. His pother blood was quickening: He felt almost itchy to begin making combinations to help heal them.

Kuma lifted the tent flap so they could peek inside. There was a table for patients to sit or lie on. Another table held baskets containing stacks of fabric squares and rolled lengths of linen for bandages. Next to the baskets stood two large basins, one each of hot and cold water. Raffa was impressed again by what the settlers had accomplished in such a short time, but he couldn’t help noting the improvised nature of everything he saw.

A young man sat on the table. Missum Yuli, whom Raffa had met at the settlement, was examining a wound on his neck. “You’re here!” she exclaimed without stopping her work. “Kuma will tell you what we need. Sooner is better, please upon thank you!”

They left her to her work and went next door into the pother tent. Raffa turned to Kuma. “The fox,” he said quietly.

“Red, spring,” she replied.

They were both thinking of the fox they had found earlier, one of dozens of animals that had stormed Kuma’s settlement. “Red, spring” had been the command for attack—to leap and bite at people’s throats. That was why the injuries were almost all to the face, neck, and shoulder.

“You know animal bites,” Kuma said, addressing both him and Garith. “They turn putrid easily, and can take a long time to heal. We can’t afford to lose people to injury—as it is, we’ll be well outnumbered. What we need is something that will speed up the healing.”

Raffa glanced at Garith to make sure he was following along and saw his cousin’s eyes light up.

“I’ve got something that might help,” he said. He took yet another bag from his rucksack, opened it, and held it out toward Raffa.

At first glance, Raffa could see the color of the open bag’s contents.

Red.

An intense, vivid red that almost seemed to be glowing.

Raffa let out a shout of near glee. Garith had brought with him powder made from the scarlet vine!

Garith put the bag of the scarlet-vine powder on the tabletop. Raffa stared at it for a moment, thinking.

Combinations made with the rare and elusive vine had proved to be miraculous, healing and curing sick and injured animals almost before his very eyes. But when the vine infusions were taken by mouth, the creatures had later suffered from dreadful side effects. No matter how dire the need, Raffa knew he could not yet give humans the vine infusion by mouth.

However, it was a different story with poultices, which were rubbed on the skin. Raffa had treated Echo and two baby raccoons with a vine poultice, and as far as he could tell, there had been no ill effects.

But he had not yet used the poultice on a person. Anxious as he was to get the poultice to Missum Yuli, Raffa knew it could not be used until he was certain it was safe.

He flapped his hand to get Garith’s attention. “The combination for slashes and lacerations,” he said. “We’re going to need a lot of it.”

In addition to the vine powder, Garith had brought quantities of many other botanicals from the laboratory. This was an amazing gift—to have such variety and quality right from the start! Garith took charge of organizing these ingredients, while Kuma went off to fetch tools and equipment from the kitchen and supply tents.

Raffa hurried to the tent flap and called after her.

“Kuma, would you keep your eyes open for Jimble? Tell him we could use his help here. You’ll know him when you see him—like Trixin shrank and turned into a boy.”

She smiled at that, and waved her assent.

The cousins began their work. Raffa was conscious that they had to balance speed with caution; it was not easy to work both quickly and carefully. When they had made a large batch of the healing combination, he put a small amount into a mortar, then stirred in a spoonful of the scarlet-vine powder.

The grainy dust was incorporated into the paste, growing smoother with each turn of the pestle. Raffa felt his mind empty, in a good way, of all but the task at hand. The paste took on a faint red glow. A few more turns, and glow turned to glimmer. Raffa speeded up the rhythm, until a breathtaking flurry of sparkles and flashes danced throughout the paste.

Garith slapped the tabletop and grinned at Raffa, who grinned back and nodded. Garith understood, as perhaps only another pother could, the satisfaction of a beautifully made combination.

“How are you going to test it?” Garith asked.

Raffa glanced up from the mortar. “Actually, I have the perfect subject,” he said. He held up his bandaged right hand. “Me.”

Garith unwound Raffa’s bandage and put it aside to be laundered. Then he fetched a clean one from Missum Yuli in the treatment tent.

Raffa washed his wound and dried it carefully. Part of him felt a sudden reluctance. He could not forget that another poultice made with the vine had caused a dangerous reaction. That was a different combination, he reminded himself. This one was fine for Echo and the raccoons. It might not do anything wonderful, but it’ll probably be perfectly harmless.

He kept his body moving, hoping to dodge his doubt. He took a single breath, dipped his left forefinger into the paste, and quickly rubbed it onto his right hand.

“There,” he said, his voice a little too loud. “Now we wait and see.”

To his surprise, he sounded exactly like his father. How often had Mohan used the same words, cautioning him to patience?

He stared at his hand for a long moment. Nothing seemed to be happening. But maybe that’s a good thing. No pain or burning, like last time. Yes, definitely a good thing. Trying to distract himself from his impatience, he worked with Garith to organize the tent space into some semblance of a pother laboratory.

A little while later, Kuma returned. She was carrying a bucket that contained a strainer, a pair of tongs, some hollow reeds, a paper of pins, and a few other items Raffa had asked for. She also had some welcome news.

“I found Jimble,” she said.

Raffa hooted in delight and relief.

“He’s helping set up a sort of nursery for the little ones,” she said. “He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

A nursery? Raffa frowned.

“Kuma, do you know anything about what’s going on?” he asked. “We’re not here just to hide out, are we?” When the guards realized that the Afters were not at the settlements, it wouldn’t take long before they widened the search to include the Forest. As a hiding place, the clearing was not the best choice: It was probably the only part of the Forest that some of the guards might know.

“The leadership council is in meetings all the time, talking about it,” Kuma said. She named the council members: Haddie and Elson, her aunt and uncle; Mannum Fitzer; Davvis’s mam, Missum Quellin, the boatbuilder; and Missum Abdul from the settlement. “And your da and mam, of course. Even though they’re not here.”

Raffa felt a pang of longing for his parents so keen that it made him gasp. He held his breath for a moment to keep from crying. Then he realized that his fists were tightly clenched. He looked down at his hands, trying to relax.

“Shakes and tremors!” he said. As his companions stared, he held out his right hand, knowing what he would see before he saw it.

He turned his hand palm up and opened his fingers wide.

The cut had already healed. The skin was firm, dry, and healthy, with only a faint line of pink for a scar.